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Comment by trompetenaccoun | Hacker News Reader

And that is in addition to the outrageous fees CC companies charge merchants. In the US it's typically around 2% of the transaction! The EU caps it at 0.3% maximum, which still seems like a lot when you consider how much money they move. That's another cost that gets socialized and passed on to the consumer of course, even shoppers who pay cash have to pay for this through higher prices.

People should know btw that with 3D secure the card owner can be held liable for fraudulent charges, because some banks have that in their terms for 3D secure. With phone 2FA all that needs to happen is you have your phone and wallet stolen. I've seen cases in the news where people lost thousands.

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> With phone 2FA all that needs to happen is you have your phone and wallet stolen.

Are device passcode and app biometrics insufficient security measures in the event of device theft?

If you have your phone set to wake-up/show notifications on new messages, and your bank simply sends an SMS code as verification, then the thief can just read the message(s) when they come in and input them.

You have the option to hide the actual message, at least on Android.

Last I checked this was opt-in on Android; it's been default on iOS since I think 2017ish?

If they have your device pin code and your device, they have control of your entire digital life.

We’ve never been more vulnerable to petty crime.

Wild idea: What if secure digital payment was a public service.

FedNow:

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/othe...

Unfortunately not many banks support it yet.

I think "secure" is the key part that's missing here. There's no incentive for a consumer to use a payment method such as this when paying with a bank. The reason is that credit cards come with consumer protection that this just doesn't offer.

I don't think customer protection is necessary unless you are dealing with unusually small or shady companies. I live in Germany and do not own a credit card, they are uncommon here. Mostly we pay per bank transfer or debit card. Even with the possibility of fraud, this is probably significantly cheaper in expectation than paying a 2% credit card fee each time just to have the possibility of chargeback.

Have you ever considered that what’s keeping most companies proactively honest and consumer-friendly are consumer protection laws and regulations?

Have you ever considered that those don't require credit card chargebacks?

Of course not, but you made a different point in the comment I was replying to:

> I don't think customer protection is necessary [...]

Chargebacks are only one possible consumer recourse mechanism specific to payment cards. There's other means to keep merchants honest.

No thank you. This is how you get something like UPI in India.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36980279

> The EU caps it at 0.3% maximum

That's completely untrue. Most European businesses pay much more than that.

You're mixing up total cost of processing the card (which is what Stripe and other gateways charge) with the Visa/MC rent.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/fr/MEMO_1...

"Therefore, the Regulation caps interchange fees for consumer debit cards to 0.2 % and consumer credit cards to 0.3 % of the value of the transaction."

The (now called) interchange fees go to the card issuing banks, not the card networks. Both network/scheme fees and processor fees come on top of that.

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